My “Charts, Organizational Approaches, and Color” webinar was held yesterday and was a hit with our attendees. The recording and handout have now been made available for purchase and download. More details on our announcement page.
When research in the United States gets back beyond a certain point, records are fewer and less likely to make direct statements-particularly in certain colonies and geographic areas. It is important to remember that any conclusion reached when the records are not clear may need to be revised if new information comes to light. Keep your mind open to the chance that you may be incorrect or may have not looked at all the records. Never assume that your initial “hunch” is Gospel Truth.
Genealogy Tip of the Day has a fan page on Facebook. The page discusses a variety of topics, including additional commentary on some of our tips.
Document transcriptions should always be made as close to the original document–errors and all. Sometimes it is clear that the original document is in error. It is not the job of the transcriptionist to correct the error. Instead put the word sic in brackets after the error, like so “I John give to my daughter William[sic] the farm on which I now live.” Sic indicates that the word was copied from the original and the error was not done on the part of the transcriptionist. Use sic whenever it appears that the original is incorrect. If you feel the need to comment on the error do so in a commentary that clearly is separate from the transcription
It can be tempting to assume that a list of a couple’s children has them in order of their birth. That is not always necessarily true. Sometimes the children may be listed by gender or in the order in which the writer remembered their names. Children may not necessarily be listed in order of age in a will–they may be listed in an order based on the property they were bequeathed.
Posting images of records to genealogy groups online can be a good way to get advice on what a difficult-to-read word actually says. The one problem with that sometimes one really needs the advice of someone familiar with the area. They don’t have to live there. They do not have to ever have lived there. But they need to be familiar with the local area, the names, the geography, and the families. The father on this 1940-era birth certificate has a place of birth that is difficult to read. The village to which he refers (using the word “village” loosely) barely existed in 1940. There’s nothing there today. The family’s residence when this birth certificate was completed was about eight miles from where the father was born. Someone […]
I was working on the family of a second cousin of my great-grandfather who was born around 1860 and died around 1940. The dates really do not matter for this post, but what does matter is what I was reminded of. Even if you are adding information to your tree (complete with images and citations), I prefer to jot a few things down as I go. The cousin apparently divorced his wife. She married again. He did not. Her second husband died a few years after their marriage. Her name is on that man’s tombstone, but she’s not buried with him. She’s buried with her son in a separate location. Her third husband had children with his first wife. That man’s obituary mentions some of his step-children, but […]
If your relative had multiple marriages, have you looked to see how long they were single in between marriages? Have you looked to see how long their subsequent spouses were single between marriages? This is not to judge, but can help give some perspective on how the marriage might have been reacted to by close family members. And perspective always helps.
Reminder that photographs mounted to heavy paper backing may not stay attached to the backing. If the identification is on the backing, it may eventually be separated from the picture. Some attachments are not forever.
Are you using place names to describe where an ancestor was born, died, or was buried, that are not listed in any gazetteer? Make certain that you also include a more reference (eg. GPS coordinates) to assist others in finding the location. Try and pin down where locations are when someone mentions something like the “McNally place,” the meadow slough, the Habben corner, etc. Sometimes these locations can be determined by using a land ownership map or other geographic finding aid and sometimes they cannot. If the McNallys never owned the farm but rented it for years their name won’t be on the land ownership map. The “meadow slough” may be hard to pin down as well. Searching old newspapers for those locations is also a good idea. […]
We are offering this new session on on 12 February 2022. Learn more on our announcement page and join us live or pre-order a recording!
This post is not about digitally scanning documents. This one is about actually using your eyeballs. I first worked on my children’s Belgian ancestors years ago. When using the vital records from the 19th century, I used them the way I had other European records from the same time span. I looked in the “book” for and read through the entries for the years I thought included the person’s birth date. Then, if I had the correct person and had the names of the parents, I scanned the years before and after the birth to locate siblings. Imagine my surprise when I found indexes interspersed in the records. I had never encountered those before. While indexes are not perfect, they would have saved me a great deal of […]
If your ancestor’s church disbanded, there are several places the records might have gone: the local dump the family of the last minister a local church of the same denomination a regional or national church organization, synod, assembly, diocese, etc. Contact local historical or genealogical societies, local churches of the same denomination, and regional and national archives (or governing bodies) of the denomination and see if they know what might have happened to the records.
Pick a day in your ancestor’s life. Try and answer the following questions as of that date: Where was my ancestor living? Who was in his (her) household? What was the ancestor’s occupation? What was the ancestor’s age? What was going on nationally on this date (at this point in time)? What was going on locally/regionally? Were my ancestor’s parents alive? Were my ancestor’s siblings alive? Where would he (she) have gone to church the previous Sunday? Who were my ancestor’s neighbors? You get the idea. Focusing one just one day may be enough to cause you to learn about other days in the process.
I traced the family from Kentucky into Indiana where they split up went to Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. Because there were quite a few relatives of the father that were involved in this migration, I assumed that I had the whole migration cohort. I was wrong. It turns out there were members of the wife’s family in the cohort as well. They were not immediately noticed because I had not focused on the wife’s siblings. The additional migrating cohorts tended to be married sisters whose new last names I did not have. It was years ago when I made the discovery. I realized that I needed to view migration cohorts as “infinite hotels” (for those familiar with the reference). While the analogy isn’t accurate, it does not have […]
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